BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER.
o not dream it was only in olden romance
That the knight and the hero were given their chance.
Nor think for a moment that history's page
Will be blank when it tells of our own passing age.
The deed waits the doer, the hour the man,
And he is the hero who does what he can.
Jim Langan was up there at Pittston the week
When the mine walls gave way. Then with fast-blanching cheek
To that black-yawning grave's mouth rushed women and men.
Their dearest were buried there. Sheep in a pen
Not so helpless, if any yet breathing were kept
To face death in the dark, as on surely it crept.
Men stood there, wives sobbed there, naught was there to do,
Till Langan stepped boldly the huddling crowd through.
"If the boys are alive, we must reach them. I'll see!
If I find a path, you can then follow me."
Over rough rocks and ruins, o'er falling débris,
He crawled and he pushed, with the blood dripping free
From torn hands and knees. In the dark, in the dole,
Jim Langan fought on to the desperate goal.
Above him the dusky roof shuddered and shook,
A menace each inch of the black way he took;
The foul air was stifling, the night wrapped him round
As he wormed his slow progress deep under the ground.
The great pillars sagging, his thick gasping breath—
A strife of the heart against threatening death—
Jim Langan fought on—there were men pent up there
In that tomb of the mine shaft, a prey to despair—
Fought on, and fought back, for the help that must save
Those poor prisoned men from a horrible grave.
The red line of valor is still on the earth;
The true and the fearless we prize at their worth.
And, lads, never dream that the heroes are gone,
That they only loomed up in the world's early dawn,
For Homer to sing, lest the world should forget.
The valiant man leads us, is king of us yet,
Redeeming our time from its strife after pelf
With the sacrifice laid on God's altar—himself.
1.—FORWARD BREAST STROKE.
